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Comments: 89 +-   Oblivion Confirmed for PS3 Launch on Thursday September 28 2006, @09:54AM

Posted by Zonk on Thursday September 28 2006, @09:54AM
from the way-to-catch-up dept.
playstation
sony
1up reports that Elder Scroll IV: Oblivion will be a PlayStation 3 launch title. From the article: "Yes, the rumors are true: Oblivion is heading to PlayStation 3, and an upcoming cover story in Official PlayStation Magazine has the exclusive first look. Here's what we know so far. The game will introduce a new faction to the Oblivion world, one that's available right at the beginning called Knights of the Nine and described by the developers as 'the good Dark Brotherhood.' The goal here is to become the Divine Crusader (think part warrior, part priest), and the quest features new locations, characters, armor and weapons."
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  • by Spad (470073) <slashdot@spad.c o . uk> on Thursday September 28 2006, @09:55AM (#16229543) Homepage
    I knew it, the PS3 is going to bring about the apocalypse.
    • The message board apocalypse.
    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Since this is a Sony article, you can stop reading. Below will be only:
      - whining about the price of the PS3 compared to the underpowered and featureless Wee
      - Sony-bashing in general
      - mentioning the leading HD-storage BluRay and Betamax together
      - "jokes" about rootkits
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Yeah - I was wondering how long it would take for a comment to manage to turn what is essentially good news for the PS3 into a negative. And the very first comment does.

        At least this time it was a joke.

        The game's section motto should be "Trolling Nerds. Sony Sucks! Ha-ha-ha-ha!"

        Disliking Sony and the PS3 is fine. Everyone is allowed to have an opinion.

        Making things up about the PS3, casting everything about it in a negative light, and generally flaming anyone who's interested in anything PS3 related is
    • It would have happened sooner had Satan not been so polarized in favor of the Blu-Ray camp.

  • Year old game to be available for PS3Okay, and there's a new joinable faction.

    So, erm, why is this worthy of putting on /.? I mean, if it was an exclusive, or at least was launching on the PS3 at the same time as other platforms, or even had been listed as Windows/XBox 360 exclusive before, maybe, but... really, so what?
    • This will be a good early benchmark to directly compare graphic capabilities of the xbox360 and the ps3.
      • The ps3 is more difficult to program for and thus first generation games/ports may look worse then 1st gen games of other simpler systems when compared to their full potential.
        • The screenshots look pretty much the same, the game has been finished and out for other systems for some time now and Bethesda has probably had plenty of time to port it over to the PS3 dev kit. While it won't give the best idea on the graphic capability of games developed specifically for the PS3, it could give an early idea of what multi-platform games will look like on both systems.

          Out of the box, PS3 games SHOULD looks just as good or just as bad as their XBox 360 counterparts. It's years down the road
        • FUD (Score:5, Insightful)

          by MikeBabcock (65886) <mtb-slashdot@mikebabcock.ca> on Thursday September 28 2006, @10:28AM (#16230171) Homepage Journal
          I'm getting sick of reading "the PS3 is harder to program for" from people who've never written code on it.

          You do realize the PS3 dev kids come with a huge number of SDKs including massive middleware options for physics, 3D rendering, audio, etc. and a great toolchain? It may not be as idiot-friendly as MS's tools (something Microsoft has always been good at -- their tools that is), but its very thorough. Its not like Bethseda had to sit down and write Cell assembly all day every day. The Unreal engine is available for use (although I doubt they used that), the same tree engine they use on the XBox360 is available, movie codecs are already written, etc.

          Sure, optimizing for the low levels of a PS3 engine would be more challenging perhaps than the simpler XBox360 core, most of this can be written in high level languages and compiled easily (with GCC no less) to work quite well out of the box. Go read some real developper information on what Sony provides with a dev kit. The major complaint was that the dev kits weren't as plentiful as hoped -- which indicates that quite a few companies wanted them.
          • I'm getting sick of reading "the PS3 is harder to program for" from people who've never written code on it.

            I can see where you are coming from, but every interview with PS3 developers I have read was along the lines of "it's the fucking hardest thing I have ever done". I don't think they all lie.
              • I'm sure programming for the first time on any hardware platform is hard -- especially when nobody has ever done it before. We're talking an entirely new hardware platform here, no books, no well-known optimizations or hangups, no tricks of the trade yet, new new.

                That said, IBM is already shipping Cell based servers as I understand it, so I'm sure the programmer base is growing in leaps and bounds as we speak and there may be some downright awesome code being written for it much sooner than we think.

                Your P
          • Its not like Bethseda had to sit down and write Cell assembly all day every day. The Unreal engine is available for use (although I doubt they used that), the same tree engine they use on the XBox360 is available,

            On the PC, they use the Havok physics engine, which is available for PS3 [gametomorrow.com].
            • I know what you mean ... I've been writing code (database industry primarily) for years now and I can't imagine what they were thinking in RAM costs. "Ok, we've got $1000 per unit manufacturing budget, lets only put in 256MB of RAM for apps, no no, 1G would cost an extra $10."

              That said, I have no idea how most of my PS2 games were made with only 32MB of RAM available, so I'll sit back and watch the results with everyone else.
    • agreed, I can already play this on my PC, and as my slightly old PC is probably now worth less than a new Playstation 3, why bother?
      At least the XBox had halo, a game that PC players drooled over for years only to ahve it snatched away from them. This smacks of desperation. Possibly some big name devs who they were relying on for more original launch titles decided against it?
      • What are you talking about? Where's the desperation? There's a new console, Bethesda has a next-gen game that's been out for a while that they want to sell more copies of and they add a little bonus to the game as an incentive to buy a copy for the new system. This happens all the time. Bethesda wants to make more money off of their game, so they put it on another platform. Where's the desperation?
        • sony. not bethseda. Its a smart move for bethseda. But from sonys POV, this is no Halo. Is this why they want me to spend so much? to play old PC games?
  • Why? (Score:2, Interesting)

    I would assume that everyone who was interested in Oblivion would have already purchased it. I'm not sure how this will be a big selling point for the PS3 when it will be $10-20 more (depending on price drop) than the PC or 360.
    • It's not really a big selling point at all. It's just another game available for the system. This really doesn't seem to be news worthy of being posted on /. and SEEMS to have been posted only so Zonk can get in another sideways comment on the PS3 (from the way-to-catch-up department).
    • In Europe, Oblivion on the PC cost 50 euros. Oblivion on the XBox 360 cost 75 euros. In other words the price of the 360 version was already 25 more than the PC counterpart. People who claim XBox 360 prices are analogous to PC or older consoles are misinformed or lying. Certainly the price might drop a bit with time and you might knock a bit off for an internet purchase, but the retail price for new titles is usually 65 euros or up. Most likely PS3 games will cost exactly the same as their 360 counterparts.
  • by Jarnis (266190) on Thursday September 28 2006, @10:03AM (#16229731)
    It's a port, so most of the assets are already done. Why not do a port of a 'big' title for a launch which is most likely going to be low on games, and take in some easy cash?

    Every new console launch has it's share of easy ports raking in the launch madness - when people buy just about anything just to get another game for their shiny new thingy (since there's like 5 titles to choose from)
    • Oblivion coming to PS3 is good news for Sony, but it's already on PC and Xbox 360. Everyone who would play this game, probably already will have played by the time PS3 launches. So, sure, it's good news for Sony to have an rpg of the year at launch, but it was rpg of the year long before PS3 was available...
      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        PS3 has a main target market. PS2 owners. Oblivion is not available for PS2.
        • Oblivion is not available for PS2.

          But Morrowind is available.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            Not on the PS2.
            • Curious. Somehow, I came to the wrong conclusion that Morrowind was on the PS2, despite knowing for a fact that it isn't, and also personally having the XBox and PC version. Throws my whole morning into a new perspective. Disregard what I said earlier.

  • I wonder how the graphics will compare?
  • I'm still not interested in buying a PS3!
  • Ok, I guess its cool and all that they are going to sell it for the PS3, but most people who are really interested in the game probably have already played it/beaten it (It took me forever, lol). Unless they are going to add some new stuff to the PS3 version, this announcement isn't very important....
  • by ConfusedSelfHating (1000521) on Thursday September 28 2006, @10:11AM (#16229877)
    It would be interesting to see how well Oblivion runs on a PS3 in comparison to a PC or Xbox 360. Is the PS3 really that much better than an Xbox 360? This would show. On some settings Oblivion can humble a Quad SLI setup (usually max settings outdoors), so it won't be a case of the PS3 maxing out Oblivion. I wonder whether it will come on a Blu Ray disc or a DVD because it clearly doesn't need the Blu Ray's capacity. That Blu Ray drive sure is worth the extra cost. Maybe a lot of pre-rendered video will be thrown on for fun.

    This is only for people who are completely devoted to the Playstation brand. Anyone else who wanted it, already owns it.
    • this is the key.

      We have an established game/franchise that we know can sell well (if it will sell well despite having already had 2 releases nearly a year earlier, we will see).

      Alos, if they do this right they could really spruce up the game to make it perfect for the PS3.

      Higher deff models, sceanery, spell effects, etc etc.
      and all of this to be stored in one DVD (via BR).

      Yah know, this actualy looks like the ideal game for the PS3 to show what it can do.

      Then again, if they just port all the models/sprites/
    • All the Sony fanbois who seem to think that the PS3 is magically so much more powerful than the 360, are going to be greatly depressed. First of all, I doubt Bethesda is going to change the game assets all that much, so it is going to be a straight port, and look just like one. However, your casual gamer is not going to realize this, and when he sees that Oblivion for the PS3 looks pretty much like the one for the 360 (maybe a liiittle better, but certainly not "$100-200 more" better), it's going to kill a
        • I understand the edge because they have been some crazy stuff said about the power of the PS3 but that fact remains that the PS3 pushes twice as many Flops as the 360. How it is used is an entire different subject. Chances are you are not going to see much of a difference in multiplatform games and that will pretty much kill any comparisons. In the long run you are going to have to compare exclusives to exclusives, in which most arguements will fail because of asthetics and game design.

          I don't care how many

        • the PS3 pushes twice as many Flops as the 360

          And the Xbox 360 has double the raw polygon performance. (500 million vs 275 million).
    • It will show whatever the developer wants it to show. In case you don't have the 360 version, there are absolutely no visual settings to tweak. Most likely you won't be able to put the PS3 and 360 in a side to side comparison because there will be small differences in configuration.

      Besides, you don't even need a top of the line computer to surpass both the 360 and PS3 in terms of visual quality and computational power, sure it costs you more, but the system is also infinetly more expandable and upgradable
    • Is the PS3 really that much better than an Xbox 360?

      Subjective reports from the Tokyo Game Show say yes it is. I watched a feature produced by the 1up.com site [1up.com] about the TGS and they were raving about the graphical performance of titles like Motorstorm & Virtua Fighter, bandying words around like 60fps, "arcade perfect" etc. The long and short of it was in their opinion the PS3 was graphically far more impressive than the 360.

      Whether Oblivion is will be another matter. Somehow I doubt it will look

  • Typo (Score:5, Funny)

    by tygerstripes (832644) on Thursday September 28 2006, @10:29AM (#16230195)
    "PS3 launch is destined for Oblivion"
  • by thnmnt (62145) on Thursday September 28 2006, @10:38AM (#16230381)
    i lasted about 45 minutes with this game on the xbox 360. load times and frame rates were excrutiating. it got the point where i didn't open doors due to the loads. an adventure game that discourages exploring..that's rich. maybe the 'feature' that the ps3 port will add will be...wait for it...playability!
    • ...I had the same thing happening...constant slowdowns outdoors, horrific load times. Most other titles worked great execept for King Kong, which locked up a lot. Got the dvd drive replaced and it works much much better. I'm guessing Oblivion is constantly trying to prefetch assets while your're outside....and when it has to do mulitple retries to the dvd, it looks like low framerate. I WISH they would just let you dump the whole mess to the hd while you were playing it...
      • by Blakey Rat (99501) on Thursday September 28 2006, @11:42AM (#16231641)
        Also, it doesn't say so on the box, but Oblivion really does require the HD to play smoothly. Running Oblivion on a 360 with no HD attached is just asking for trouble.

        If the console does have a HD, and you're still experiencing troubles, you can restart the game with A held down (I believe; you can look it up) and it'll reset the cache it keeps. This means the initial load will take much longer, or as long as the HD-less 360s, but from then on it should behave much better. At least until the cache gets full again.

        From my experience playing it for extended periods with the HD, you should reset the cache every 15-20 hours of play for best performance.
  • The goal here is to become the Divine Crusader (think part warrior, part priest)

    You spelled Paladin wrong.

    Oblivion on the PS3, eh? Too bad I've already got a 360.

    The hardest of the hardcore will be the ones going for a PS3 if it's going to come off the shelves at 600$ each. I used to think I was a gaming bad ass until I heard that price tag. I'll probably get one, but it won't be for that price, and certainly not for a game I already have on another platform.

    You've got a great opportunity here, Sony.

  • Off on a tangent perhaps, but anywho...

    I started playing Oblivion (on PC) again a few nights ago because I was jonesing for an RPG. But I've quickly remembered why I left Oblivion unfinished a few months ago. It's big, it's beautiful, but it's repetitive and boring. It can't decide if it wants to be an RPG or a 3D action game, so it doesn't do a very good job of being either one.

    I'm sure it's going to look stunning on a PS3. It looks like it has more horsepower, and 1080p output will just be beautifu
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      Uh, wow. I don't know what kind of RPGs you prefer, but I think pretty much the entire world disagrees with you on the Elder Scrolls series. (Especially the last two: Morrowind and Oblivion.)

      The gameplay is what you make of it. If you find it boring, that's because you're doing boring things... go do something else. There's no shortage. You can take up alchemy and figure out how to mix herbs to make potions. You can take up enchanting, and construct your own enchanted weapons and armor. You can be a
      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        It's absolutely repetitive. Once you've ransacked a couple of Ayleid ruins, you've ransacked them all. How many Oblivion gates did you close before deja vu set in? Enter, kill everything on the way to the tower, clear tower, get Sigil stone, done. Enchant armor so it's faster next time. Not sure how it took you 4 hours.

        There's not much "figuring out" for alchemy. Gather herbs, make potions and skill up. Rinse and repeat. That's not repetitive?

        Thievery is also rather easy and repetitive. Especially onc
        • You must have been playing on Easy. Or maybe you're just better at the game than I am. But beating the bosses in those Oblivion gates were hard for me, and took me several tries. Plus the time it takes to handle all the baddies leading up to it, and the time it took to figure out the puzzle to open the gate to the main tower...
    • If you want something ultimaish with modern tech, go for the Gothic series, highly underrated series, one of the best ever done.
  • it sucked on 2 systems already, so why not suck on a third?
    And yes it did suck. It was pretty, but if you could actually look past that, it was boring.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      Why? Even PS3 and Sony haters should want the system to be moderately successful - because otherwise there is no competition. And as the FUD about the PS3 (way too much of it generated by the talking heads at Sony making off-the-cuff remarks and guesses) begins to clear up and actual information begins to solidify, it looks like the system will actually be viable.
Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building. -- Oscar Wilde